Chasing Camelot

On May 29, the assassinated president’s 109th birthday, a Washington judge ordered the removal of Donald Trump’s name on the John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts. An appointee of former President Barack Obama, Judge Christopher Cooper, also halted Trump’s plan to close the building for renovations which were slated to take two years.

In a 94-page ruling, Cooper wrote that the Centre’s Trump-headed and Trump-appointed board of trustees violated the original law that named the cultural institution for Kennedy in 1964, following Kennedy’s murder in November 1963. Cooper added, “The Kennedy Centre’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Centre is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so...Congress gave the Kennedy Centre its name, and only Congress can change it.”

Trump called Cooper “an anti Trump Hater” and predicted that the nation’s premier performing arts centre will “soon be closed, probably never to open again.” He claimed that the centre is “rusted, rotted, and rat and bug infested” and that the “new building would have been incomparable.”

Trump appeared to acquiesce. For now. But, he hoped that staking a claim to the centre and the Kennedy name could boost Trump’s political standing which is at a low ebb. Trump wants to hitch his negative baggage-laden wagon to the Kennedy star.

While both men were elected to the presidency, Republican Trump cannot claim political kinship with Democrat Kennedy. Kennedy represented excellence, hope and aspiration during a period of US drift. Trump is mediocre, a no-hoper and non-aspirational. At 43 when elected and sworn in, Kennedy was the youngest ever president. In 2016 when elected to his first term, Trump was 70 and he was 78 when he began his second term, making him the oldest president in US history. There is no comparison between them.

Kennedy served during World War II in the Office of Naval Intelligence before volunteering for Patrol Torpedo boat duty and in 1943 served in the Solomon Islands where his vessel was rammed and sliced in half by a Japanese destroyer. Despite a severe back injury, Kennedy led his surviving crew members to a nearby island where they were rescued. During the Vietnam War, Trump received four draft deferments while pursuing university education and a medical exemption in 1968 for bone spurs on his heels although he was active in sports.

Kennedy followed World War II hero Dwight Eisenhower who took office in 1953 at 62 and retired at 70 at the end of his second term in 1961. Kennedy was an experienced lawmaker who represented Massachusetts in the US House of Representatives and the Senate where he served from 1953-1960 when he resigned to assume the presidency. Young, handsome, with a lovely wife and two small children, Kennedy (1961-1963) brought glamour, energy, enthusiasm and expertise to Washington. His administration was dubbed “Camelot.” This coincided with the opening of US actor Richard Burton in the musical play about the 12th century British King Arthur’s court when knights gathered around a round table were considered equal. Kennedy recruited experienced and innovative ministers, established the Peace Corps, launched the Apollo space program, secured the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and introduced civil rights legislation which led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On the regional scene, Kennedy cultivated relations with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to encourage him to cool ties with the Soviet Union and promote US connections with the global non-aligned movement.

Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963, and was mourned around the world. Then a graduate student at the American University of Beirut, I did not learn the news until the next morning. When I reached campus I was told by a tearful friend, “The president has been killed!” I assumed she meant the Lebanese president. “No,” she cried, “Kennedy.” He had captured the imagination of people the world over. Years later while covering an Indian parliamentary election I accompanied a candidate to a hamlet near Bangalore where villagers displayed a large Kennedy poster. They had learned ahead of time there was a US citizen covering the visit. Trump can never hope to capture Kennedy’s magic.

What has Trump accomplished during his White House residency? He signed tax legislation which increased national debt and lowered federal taxes, largely, for the most affluent. He sought to cut federal spending for major medical welfare programmes, reversed measures to protect the environment, and withdrew from the Paris climate change accord and the World Health Organisation. He appointed conservative judges to the Supreme Court, imposed tariffs on allies which retaliated with tariffs of their own and adopted a racist approach to immigration. He recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital although this was meant to be settled in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians and backed Israel in its war in Lebanon. On Feb. 28, Trump joined Israel in its war on Iran which was expected to last four days and has continued for three months. He is currently seeking a way out of the conflict but is inconsistent in his demands. This has created confusion.

Trump has backtracked on the text of a peace deal with Iran negotiated by his envoys, deepening existing Iranian distrust of Trump, who in 2018 exited the successful 2015 agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions reached during the Obama administration. Since Trump’s withdrawal, Iran has made major advances in its nuclear programme which in 2015 was described by international monitors as “primitive.”

Trump has begun to pay a price for his mishandling of US affairs. After musicians learned of Trump’s connection, they refused to take part in opening ceremonies to mark the country’s 250th year birthday. In response he announced his intention of headlining the event.